Appearing on CBS’ “60 Minutes” last Sunday, Rauf tried to put a happy face on his towering Islamic mega-mosque/community center:

It’s the right thing to do. Our community wants it. And now America needs it. And the Muslim world needs it.

Rauf is right when he says that the “Muslim world needs” his Cordoba House to be built right in the shadow of Ground Zero – for its own self-glorification. It would serve as what the imam once called an “icon” to make the whole Muslim world proud.

However, the majority of the New York City community does not want this monument to Islamic victory built so close to Ground Zero. Nor does America need it. Opponents of the location of the Cordoba House are not the ones who need a lesson in religious tolerance. Rauf and his co-believers in the supremacy of sharia (Islamic law) are the ones lacking in mutual tolerance and respect for others.

In short, Iman Rauf, we do not need your condescension or your Ground Zero mosque.